As someone who served as San Francisco’s mayor from 2004 to 2011, Newsom has been particularly forceful in his opposition to any National Guard deployment. He called the notion of troops in the city “unnecessary” and declared in a public statement: “We don’t bow to kings, and we’re standing up to this wannabe tyrant.” He went on to assert, “The notion that the federal government can deploy troops into our cities with no justification grounded in reality, no oversight, no accountability, no respect for state sovereignty — it’s a direct assault on the rule of law.”
San Francisco’s city leadership has joined in resisting the idea. Mayor Daniel Lurie acknowledged that while fentanyl is the city’s biggest street-level challenge, deploying military troops is not the answer. District Attorney Brooke Jenkins issued a clear statement: “Let me be clear — no local or elected San Francisco leaders want the National Guard deployed to San Francisco at the direction of the Trump Administration.” Local officials have emphasized that federal law prohibits National Guard troops from acting as local police, stressing that even deployment would not permit troops to make arrests or investigate crimes — contrary to some of the suggestions made by Trump’s team.Continue reading…
